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Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

theguardian.com

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Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#261

Post by TheCoelacanth »

claydavisss wrote: post #103
nobody271 wrote: post #91

I walk to the grocery store most days. It seems to kill several birds with one stone: - unwind after work - get exercise - get outside - time to think You would think it would be a lot more popular but it's not. It seems more like there must be something wrong with you if you walk on a daily basis lol. ... societal norms I guess.

Come back when you are seventy and tell us if you still enjoy cycling with forty pounds of groceries This entire thread is predicated on building cities for young single men

Elderly people are often helped the most this type of change. People who can no longer drive can still get around by other means. My grandfather had a tricycle that he rode for many years after he became incapable of driving a car.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#262

Post by donretag »

CalRobert wrote: post #178

Not sure what your situation is but there are a fair number of options for people who are decent programmers to move to Europe permanently..

I wish that were the case for all of Europe. I am willing to take the pay cut, but there are no real opportunities in southern Europe and if there are, the pay cut tends to be around 75%.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#263

Post by overcast »

Avalaxy wrote: post #251
azamatms wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what stops most people is the 50% paycut compared to US salaries I'd move to Berlin in a heartbeat if it weren't for that

It's not a fair comparison though. Yes, the salary is lower, but you can free or almost free healthcare, you get many vacation days, you get vacation money (at least in the netherlands), you get paid time off when sick, more job stability, unemployment benefits, etc.

Sure, but all you're doing is effectively paying for those yourself with the pay cut. It's not just about paying for day to day things, 50% pay cut is 50% less I get to invest.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#264

Post by adrianN »

gaius wrote: post #148
dexen wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A simple requirement would be a strict upper limit of 1m²/passenger I beg to differ - this doesn't gracefully handles special cases. Both my disabled neighbor or my friend taken by ambulance to the hospital (made up examples) would fare far worse than in the current system. We already have have a better system to divide that among people - those who care highly about particular issue can reserve more space or whatev…

reliably brings home a week worth of groceries, drives me 2hrs to meet family, and occasionally delivers tools and materials to various points. All that on the cheap, and with easily calculable costs All the talk of banning cars seems to come from people so privileged that other people invisibly provide all the services of the road network to them, delivering their stuff and so on. I mean if a person’s entire life is…

You can be in favor for banning personal use vehicles without banning delivery and ambulances. And as you'll note the city in the article only banned cars in the city center, so talking about an hour outside of London is not relevant. If London banned cars in the city center you could drive to the closest rail station at the border of the exclusion zone and take public transport from there.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#265

Post by yodsanklai »

janlaureys wrote: post #222
Sharlin wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are the ultimate tragedy of the commons. People want to use cars but at the same time don’t want the negative externalities caused by everyone else using cars too – congestion, noise, pollution, road surface erosion. Because that selfish individualistic viewpoint gets us nowhere, a coordinated approach is needed.

Nobody drives a car in New York. Too much traffic.

You have also a good public transportation system in New York. There are many big cities with much worse traffic than NYC but there are simply no alternatives to cars.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#266

Post by djrogers »

hannasanarion wrote: post #37
Keyframe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the culture shocks from Europe to US (California) was that there are places where you can't do shit without a car. Like, no place place to walk along the street to get from point A to B.

It's because of the geography. Southern California and Arizona especially were impossible to live in until after Air Conditioning became cheap and widespread in the 1950s. At that time, modernism in architecture and city planning was at its peak: build it big, build it simple, and build it for cars.

Southern California? There are tons of places in LA and San Diego where AC is entirely optional and often not installed. 72 and sunny is a stereotype for a reason...

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#267

Post by vanderZwan »

revx wrote: post #260
crikli wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are an archaic solution to the transportation problem, and they are not effective in today's society." Don't assume that every place is like the place you know. Visit the US, particularly the Midwest, and you'll come to understand why privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are the only solution to this particular transportation problem. The major cities are too dispersed with countle…

It seems that the city in this article strikes a great balance - parking on the periphery for people who commute in, but the city center is car-free. The same could work for the US midwest. You drive to the edge of Chicago and then take an (improved) subway in, for example.

Groningen, The Netherlands, has an almost identical approach. It doesn't hurt that the centre of the city is extremely compact.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#268

Post by sas2000 »

revx wrote: post #260
crikli wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are an archaic solution to the transportation problem, and they are not effective in today's society." Don't assume that every place is like the place you know. Visit the US, particularly the Midwest, and you'll come to understand why privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are the only solution to this particular transportation problem. The major cities are too dispersed with countle…

It seems that the city in this article strikes a great balance - parking on the periphery for people who commute in, but the city center is car-free. The same could work for the US midwest. You drive to the edge of Chicago and then take an (improved) subway in, for example.

You basically cited the only midwest city this would work in.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#269

Post by CapricornNoble »

maaaats wrote: post #121
thales_m wrote: post #82

What about people who live inside city limits but work elsewhere? For example, I currently reside in Washington, DC but work about 30 min away. There is no public transportation to my work. At night, I park in a garage but there are others who park on the street and commute out of the city every morning.

This would solve itself if cars were banned. Either you would have to find a more practical place to live, the city add public transportation to the work, you find a new place to work, the work moving offices etc. It's only a problem because you decide things has to be exactly like they are. But with other constraints the society would have landed on an other configuration.

Every solution in your second sentence either costs businesses money or costs your workforce money.

What is your solution for your economy when BOTH decide to relocate to an administrative region that DOESN'T ban cars?

I've considered other places to live in Asia, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. I found that used Japanese sports cars (I own several) were all prohibitively expensive to import/register in each. The crazy-low "total cost of ownership" for automobiles is one of several reasons that Japan is my primary base of operations/residence.

Re: Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

#270

Post by lexs »

xxpor wrote: post #236
CalRobert wrote: post #178

Not sure what your situation is but there are a fair number of options for people who are decent programmers to move to Europe permanently..

It's hard to justify when you could potentially be looking at a 50% pay cut. That's the only reason I haven't moved myself.

Do you actually get anything out of that 50% more pay? Thinking about higher rent, healthcare etc.
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